


Thieves Get Rich

by DoctorTrekLock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort without the Comfort, Monster of the Week, lots of blood, maybe major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 02:58:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10890252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorTrekLock/pseuds/DoctorTrekLock
Summary: Three pints looked like a lot when it was dark red and coating the back seat of the Impala.  It looked like a lot when you knew it should have been in Cas, but it wasn't.  It looked like a lot when you knew it might be the reason your hunting team went back from a trio to a pair.Dean prayed to every angel he could remember.





	Thieves Get Rich

_Thieves get rich and saints get shot and God don't answer prayers a lot._

Jack Rudolph, _Studio 60_

 

Three pints.  It didn't look like a lot when you were buying milk.  Barely enough to satisfy a family of four over a week of breakfasts.  Hardly enough for a couple milkshakes.  It didn't look like a lot when it was a shovelful of dirt, either.  Just another one of hundreds needed to uncover a grave.  It didn't look like a lot when that's all you had sloshing around in the gas tank and you had forty miles to go before you finally reached another gas station.

It looked like a lot when it was dark red and coating the back seat of the Impala.  It looked like a lot when you knew it should have been in Cas, but it wasn't.  It looked like a lot when you knew it might be the reason your hunting team went back from a trio to a pair.

Dean prayed to every angel he could remember.

He tried to resist counting the pints, cups, and ounces as they continued to ooze out of the holes in Cas’s stomach.  Sam was driving as fast as he could, but Dean knew it wouldn’t make any difference.  There was a reason they didn’t usually take hunts in Montana.  There were stretches of land a hundred miles across with no sign of civilization.  The kind of empty space they now found themselves in.

Dean cursed under his breath.  He was half sitting, half reclining in the backseat of the Impala, Cas cradled against his front.  Dean’s hands were over the buckshot holes that peppered Cas’s stomach, but all he got for his troubles was dark red blood seeping between his fingers.  He cursed again, damning the ghost of a rancher who had gotten Cas with a shotgun blast at close range.  He prayed to every heavenly being that existed.

The fallen angel turned his head where it rested on Dean’s shoulder.  “Dean?”  His voice was raspy and weak.

“Yeah, Cas?”  Dean’s voice warbled with grief.

“Where—”  He coughed weakly, wetly, and Dean gritted his teeth at the reminder.  “Where are we?”

“We’re in Baby,” Dean reminded him.  Sam’s shoulders tightened from the front seat.

Cas took a moment to consider this.  “What about the ghost?”

Dean would be perfectly happy to never think about ornery ghosts of Montana ranchers ever again.  “No clue,” he admitted easily.  “We took off when you—”  _were shot, fell to the ground; stared at the ghost as if you couldn’t imagine being injured, then dropped to your knees in shock_ “—got hurt.”

Cas’s contemplation was longer this time.  “But the cows.”  A shiver wracked his body and Dean felt a fresh wave of blood roll under his fingers.  He prayed.

He opened his mouth to tell Cas that there was no way a herd of haunted cows was going to take precedence over him, but was interrupted.  “Uzziel made the cows,” he slurred, “but Israphiel,” he coughed again, “made sheep.”  There was a slight twitch to his eyebrows, as if Cas had tried to frown but found himself stymied by his own weakness.  “I…I think…Israph…” he seemed unable to make it all the way through the angel’s name.  “’Raph,” he hiccupped, “’phel…sheep because books.”

Dean exchanged a worried look with Sam through the rearview mirror.  It didn’t bode well for Cas if he was getting lost in the middle of his sentences.

“Sheep,” Cas repeated sleepily.  “Make books.”  His head flopped over to rest against Dean’s neck, as Cas lost the strength to hold it up.

Dean prayed to every deity and angel in existence, a mass prayer that would hopefully ping on the radar of anyone with an ounce of healing power.  _Someone_ had to come save Cas.  They had to.  Dean didn’t know what he would do if…

They had to.

The blood caked on his hands was beginning to cool and grow sticky.  His wrists and forearms were stained a dark brown color up to his elbows as the blood on them dried.  Dean wasn’t even sure the pressure he was applying was helping.  There didn’t seem to be much blood left in Castiel to slip through his fingers.

He could feel Cas’s soft exhalations against his cheek, but he seemed to have lost consciousness.  There was a cool wetness on his face, but Dean didn’t dare pull his hands from Cas to wipe away the tears.  His own breath was ragged.

He held the bleeding form of his best friend in his arms and _prayed_.

**Author's Note:**

> Blood loss notes from a tumblr post by tinygaytracer. http://doctortreklock.tumblr.com/post/85971580747/pandamunk-liathwen-salomeideal
> 
> Israphiel, the angel who loves books so much he created sheep for vellum is an oblique reference to Good Omens, though I'm doubtful as to Zira's participation in the making of vellum himself.


End file.
